Matt Bennett 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:36pm

    What was the punishment for Twitter for all the times it denied the gov’t requests?
    Death. FBI was going SWAT 'em. Had the snipers prepped and everything. No, that strawman argument doesn't matter. It's an asymmetric power dynamic, stop asking.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:33pm

    Colorado did, and in fact is still trying.

    to decorate a cake with speech that bakery didn’t want to put on that cake
    Else where you claimed that didn't happen (haven't gotten to read your reply yet) but that was very heart of the case so I honestly have no idea why or how you would claim that. Keep in mind btw that "speech" does not apply only to lettering, if you're trying to puss out on some technicality.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:29pm

    He claimed I want to murder him and the only thing holding me back is the law, and in fact my vulgarity is a proxy for murderous intent. That's fucking amazing but there's no real response to be made about it.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:27pm

    they were spreading misinformation and lies.
    According to who? The government? Again, for maybe the third time, why wasn't Stacey Abrams banned? She said all the same things.
    The fact that China has laws that compel companies to heavily censor whatever the government doesn’t like, as well as government employees to directly monitor and take down content.
    I'm actually not sure what the Chinese laws say on that but I also know it doesn't matter because they aren't followed. Both China and Russia have free speech guarantees, in fact.
    Everyone who isn’t a government employee
    This just tells me you know nothing about elections, ballot counting, chain of custody, voter registration, verification, etc.
    the US isn’t a fascist state
    It isn't? The Biden Administration tried to inject everyone against their will a year or so back. It told landlords they no longer controlled their own property, TWICE, once AFTER SCOUTUS told them they couldn't do it. So if it's not fascist it's not for lack of trying.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:18pm

    You are mostly telling me you're illiterate.

  • On the post: CFPB Launches Long Overdue Probe Of Unaccountable Data Broker Market

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:15pm

    OBEY

  • On the post: CFPB Launches Long Overdue Probe Of Unaccountable Data Broker Market

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:06pm

    You done burnt any good will you might have ever earned here.
    I think almost all of you are super hateful and there is no pleasing you except by capitulation. Suffice to say I am not seeking your goodwill.
    Goodbye.
    I'm still here. You could've just admitted I was right and moved on.

  • On the post: CFPB Launches Long Overdue Probe Of Unaccountable Data Broker Market

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 12:03pm

    Classic Matty, changing his argument when someone calls him on it.
    Incorrect
    Acting in an unconstitutional manner and being structured in an unconstitutional manner are not the same thing.
    Incorrect, they are exactly the same thing:
    it was setup specifically to act in an unconstitutional manner and be unaccountable
    You highlighted the wrong bit. You give an org Director that can't be fired (oh, and independent funding, I did actually forget about that bit) specifically so that when it goes rogue no one can stop it. (By "rogue" I mean "What the people who created it wanted it to do" -- act as an anti-capitalist harasser of big business to which there was no recourse) So yeah, it was setup to act in an unconstitutional manner by being unaccountable. Look, I know you don't read so good and critical thinking isn't your strong suit, but your lack of reading comp isn't my moving goal posts.
    Also, “it was setup specifically to…” implies intent. I’d like to see your evidence that it was intentionally set up to violate the separation of powers.
    Lol, OK. The intent is obvious, there's only one reason to set it up that way, but let me go and pour through congressmen comments from 12 years ago so that you can quibble over them, yeah? Nah. I do like that by writing this you were attempting to construct a fall back position, tho....because you knew your first objection was meaningless.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:58am

    No. They didn’t. The cakeshop won on 1st Amendment grounds.
    Eventually, Masnick, eventually. And now they're suing them again, and again, in fact. Decades now, and hundreds of thousands of dollars. They won't stop until the cake shop is dead and buried. The only reason they still exist is because of a huge public funding and charity law effort. Any company with less press attention would be toast. So yeah, sued into the ground. You kinda made my point for me.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:55am

    You repeating this lie doesn’t make it any more true, because Parler is still around.
    "It's not murder your honor, the victim was only paralyzed" That the target survived the attack (barely, and crippled) is not really the pertinent fact there, so I think you're the one lying here.
    simply to remove content that involved incitement to and planning of rape, torture and assassination of public officials as well as private citizens.
    Besides being a hyperbolic misrepresentation, you're simply reiterating the excuses people use to justify their censorship. But I think free speech is still more important and therefore censorship is wrong. So yeah, "bad policies"
    given how despicable you are.
    Yeah, that makes you seem measured.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:49am

    Correct. And we’re still waiting for any evidence to be provided that the government directed any such Twitter censorship
    No, you're really not. Not only have you been shown such, but you have made clear that there is no evidence you would find convincing.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:45am

    On what grounds, exactly?
    Discrimination, might even make some ADA claim, any excuse, really. If such a website could exist, it would. The fact that they don't is evidence they can't. After all, the Daily Stormer Exists. But the Daily Stormer isn't a social media platform.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:43am

    It can’t be on First Amendment grounds because nobody has the right to force their speech onto private property (even if the “property” in question is a server).
    Of course they can. They did it with Cakes.

  • On the post: CFPB Launches Long Overdue Probe Of Unaccountable Data Broker Market

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:40am

    The above points is something that Matty here conflated into “it was setup specifically to act in an unconstitutional manner and be unaccountable”
    Actually, no, you're just uninformed and misunderstood what I was getting at. The blatantly unconstitutional bit was that it was setup so that it's director would be unfireable.
    which it wasn’t
    It was, as ruled by SCOTUS in Seila Law v. CFPB https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-7_n6io.pdf Fucking dumbass.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 09:33am

    No one is entitled to an audience⁠—especially not a large audience.
    This is an active attempt by you (and others) to conflate several different issues. Twitter is a private company and can do what it wants. What it wants can still be evil and wrong and I am fully right to protest it. That's completely different than a "right". If government is directing Twitters censorship, that WOULD be illegal -- on the part of government, not Twitter.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 07:13am

    The thing is, I actually agree with Matthew’s underlying point here,
    Aww, sweetums.
    Twitter is not the government. Twitter is a private company
    Yes, and if they were doing their despotic actions solely on their own my criticism would be limited to pointing out how dumb, illiberal and asinine their policies were. But then Musk bought them specifically to end those policies and the truth turned out to be so much worse.
    even if we disagree with the policies or the enforcement.
    You most definitely did not. You wrote ridiculous, Orwellian articles licking Gadde's pumps and claiming censorship is free speech.
    then people can set up competitors and compete.
    Uh huh....and Big Tech will kill them off in a weekend, explicitly for not having the same bad policies. So bullshit.
    The only issue is when the government demands that such speech be blocked, because then it is seeking to block such speech across the board. And, contrary to Matt’s belief, to date, there has been little evidence of the US government doing that.
    Not only has there been, but you seem to see it as your personal job to gaslight, lie, and mischaracterize such evidence. Let's drop for a moment the idea of "proving" anything, because this is not a court of law, it's a politics and policy discussion. And my goal is not to put people in jail (impossible, there's no statutory penalty for breaking the constitution) but to make sure this shit doesn't happen again.
    1. Twitter was meeting with a half dozen federal agencies weekly
    2. 40+ "ex"-FBI agents worked at twitter and communicated constantly with their former colleagues
    3. Federal government was spending several hundred million dollars funding groups to lobby Twitter (and FB and others) on who to censor.
    4. We have numerous examples of various government agencies requesting people be suspended and those people indeed being suspended even with no TOS violations in evidence.
    5. Perhaps much more nefariously we have the shadow-banning. (numerous execs perjured themselves, btw) Very directly we have entire topics (including true medical info) being "viewpoint throttled" per government request. (that much is in stark black and white) and then we have things like Jay Bhattacharya being disappeared, apparently also per government request. (there's less of a smoking gun there)
    6. It just so happens that Twitter's official definition of "misinformation" on covid matters aligned perfectly with the CDC/NIH stated on opinion. (Much of which was wrong and at least some of which was apparently purposeful propaganda, but that's not the important bit here) This meant, effectively, that one could not disagree with government on covid policy on Twitter. That would be just bad and dumb if Twitter did it on their own but keep in mind they were meeting and emailing with CDC, NIH, and FDA reps constantly, too.
    All of those are proven facts. And your response to allllllllllllll of that is to shrug and say "nothing to see here", "I can see how it's questionable in some cases but it's fine" and "But they did always ban those people." (apparently it doesn't matter if they DO always ban those people, either) Are you lying to yourself out of partisan affiliation, the rest of us consciously, or are you just really stupid?
    It’s kinda pathetic, but, you know, kinda used to it from silly people like Matt.
    Yeah, right back at you, for reasons listed.

  • On the post: CFPB Launches Long Overdue Probe Of Unaccountable Data Broker Market

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:26am

    CFPB definitely shouldn't exist

    one of numerous privacy-adjacent regulators industry giants have attempted to lobotomize
    Yeah, cuz it was setup specifically to act in an unconstitutional manner and be unaccountable, you moron. The administrative state amped up to 11

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:18am

    But that’s not the same as being silenced.
    Except it is. You're just trying to tell people that they're not being silenced so that it's easier to silence them.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:16am

    fanfiction.net used to have that policy.
    [Citation needed] So really what you're saying is that you know of no sites that currently have such a policy. Why? Cuz they would be sued into the ground. The world is not what it was 20 years ago. Nice try, though....no, it wasn't actually. That was pathetic.

  • On the post: Court Makes It Clear: Government Submissions To Twitter Flagging Program Do Not Violate The 1st Amendment

    Matt Bennett ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2023 @ 06:13am

    Feel free to cite your source.
    Why?

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